Still want a new–’nother–car…

Yes, I know. Keeping what one already has is almost always going to be greener than trashing it for something allegedly greener. That’s why I’m still driving–and honestly, loving–my little blue Subaru, 9 years old with 105k miles on it. It’s a great little car. The fact that at its best it gets only maybe 25mpg, and most of the time under 22, just makes me cringe whenever I get gas. But since somehow the a/c miraculously “fixed itself” over the summer, and everything else seems to be working, I don’t anticipate replacing it any time soon.

Still, by the time I do replace it, I really really want something more carbon-efficient. And fortunately we are finally beginning to see some choices coming closer to real life buy-ables…

There’s the Toyota Yaris hybrid, coming to France in 2012 and hopefully to the US not long after that; the Honda Fit is doing a hybrid as well…

There’s the Nissan Leaf, pictured above, which has already reserved all 20,000 of its first run of autos…

There’s the new–if so new it’s still highly experimental and doesn’t really work yet--“car arc” technology, which would let you use solar energy to charge your car battery…